Francesca has been trying to think of a way to put a light, frothy spin on this question, but cannot think of any, so she will just put it out there.

When Francesca was perhaps 11 or 12 years old, her Aunt Bianca came from America with a gift for Francesca: a book in English called Nothing’s Fair in Fifth Grade.

Francesca thinks the book was meant to be fat positive, in the way that fat positive was in the 1970’s and early 1980’s: the message was that Fat Girls are people too, and can make great friends, so do not make fun of your fat classmates!

The story ends with the Fat Girl losing a few pounds, which is correlated with her emerging popularity and happiness. Still, the book ends with the image that though she has lost some weight, she’s still quite heavy – and that’s basically OK. On the last page she notes that she can finally see her shoes, and Francesca, who was fat as a child, remembers relating to that line.

Francesca barely remembers Me and Fat Glenda, probably because the main character was actually the skinny girl, who had conflicts with her hippie parents, and since Francesca’s parents are as far from hippie as two people can possibly be, she did not relate. But she well remembers the sequel.

In this book, Fat Glenda has lost a lot of weight. So much weight that she is now, if not slender, at least slender enough that boys are starting to notice her, if not exactly the boys she wants (and therein lies the conflict and the comedy). But — Francesca noticed then — on the cover was a VERY slender girl, admiring her figure in a mirror.

Francesca was disturbed, but did not know why. Now she knows: while the book gave the message that being thin would not solve all your problems, it also gave the message that being thin brought with it the wonderful problem of boyfriends. Clearly, if Glenda had remained fat, the entire plot of this book would be unthinkable, because fat girls need to focus on losing weight, not on boys. Or, at least, that is what Francesca got from it at the time.

Francesca wants to know: Did you read the Fat Glenda books as a child? And if so, what did you think of them then?

37 Responses to “Me and “Me and Fat Glenda””

You know, I don’t remember “Nothing’s Fair in Fifth Grade,” but I do remember a book about a girl who, in the end, could see her shoes. Only thing about the book I remember (I assume it is the same one).

Only a few years ago, my sister gave me a piece of “chic lit,” the title of which escapes me. The first-person protagonist is fat and self-conscious about it, to the point where she is sure the people staring at her and her boyfriend in the mall are wondering why a handsome guy like him is with her. She keeps talking about how huge and enormous she is. And then she mentions that she’s a size 16.

I cried, because in all the years I’ve been fat and moderately displeased about it, it had never occurred to me that random strangers were judging me that way. As it happens, I doubt that they are, being too involved in their own lives, but for thirty minutes a whole new world of self-doubt and self-loathing was opening up for me.

(My sister insists that the point is that the protagonist is unrealistic and has an unbalanced opinion of herself; well, that’s not what came through.)

Although later in the book, in a clinical trial for a diet drug, all of the patients begin a protest of sorts during their mandatory nutritional training. They cut the nurse off as she begins the “size of a baseball” guideline for carbs and the “pack of cards” for meat – they know it already. They practice it already. It hasn’t helped them, and so they start chanting “Give us drugs!” I really did identify with the frustration of doing everything “right” (eat healthy, reasonable portions; exercise; sleep; drink water) and seeing nothing changing on the scale.

TeleriB, the book you’re talking about is Good In Bed by Jennifer Weiner. I adore her books – witty, smart stories usually involving a main character on the chubby side. It’s not your typical chick lit. Unfortunately I identify with the whole walking in the mall scene. However, what’s great about this book and all her books is not only does it express some of the big girl frustration but it really swims around in the idea that there’s more to life than merely what the eye sees. A character’s happiness has nothing to do with her weight and often in her books the character finds that they are happier when they’re chubbier. It’s refreshing. I know Jennifer Weiner isn’t a kept secret, but for anyone who hasn’t read her stuff, go check it out – it’s definitely worth your time.

I remember reading Blubber, by Judy Blume. An overweight girl was teased by her class for being overweight and being saddled with the unfortunate titular nickname after doing a report on whales and I could all too easily understand that. I liked it well enough, as I liked many of her books and had a better plot than some of her others. I also read it at the time where I was addicted to Maury and Montel and Sally Jesse, where fat, bullied kids were sometimes brought on the show, and were allowed to face their accusers, who, generally, were appropriately shamefaced and apologetic on camera and I harbored fantasies about being able to do this to my bullies. I knew, however, that were that to really happen, the fat and/or bullied kid would be even more mercilessly bullied once the cameras were off and they were back at school. So in Blubber, at least it was more realistic about what the likely consequences were in standing up to bullies, even if you weren’t the one being bullied.

I think that (sadly) the most memorable fat character in my childhood reading was Robin Wilson from the Sweet Valley High Series. Of course in that book, she solved her unpopularity problem by very easily losing gobs of weight, simply by trading in her cafeteria tray (which had always been “heaped with double burgers”, if I remember correctly) for a few lettuce leaves and running for hours before and after school.

Even at the time, when I was young and completely unaware of the idea that I just might not be a horrible person for being fat, I hated this book. (And yet I can still quote from it. How tragic.) Mainly, I think, I hated it because I had never once heaped my tray with double burgers and was still fat. How was I to get to the Magical Kingdom of Thindom without any double burgers to give up?

Guess I was locked out of the house and forced to jog around the block while ya’ll were reading. I knew to hide snacks and water (to mimic sweat) in the garage for these times but in hindsight a book might have been a better choice- cause I wasnt going to jog!

oh yes, I very MUCH remember reading “Hey, Remember Fat Glenda.” Between that kind of helpful pre-teen literature, and was supposed to be “gentle encouragement” from my well-meaning parents, I firmly believed that as long as I was fat, no boy would ever ever EVER want to date me. I would look with total disbelief at other girls who were shapely as they flirted shamelessly and went out with boys. DIDN’T THEY KNOW??? They must be sluts. Giving it away. It was the only explanation that made sense to me.

I can’t tell you how much damage this did to me. And sadly, this belief lasted well into my 20s, this idea that I was undeserving of love, ESPECIALLY since I had no real interest in losing weight. I was obviously defective.

It makes me so angry now. Because I didn’t start dating until my mid 20s. And I found that men liked me! And didn’t care that I was fat! In fact, they LOVED the fact that my boobs were huge! DID YOU KNOW MEN LIKED BIG BOOBS??? I HAD NO IDEA!!! Umm…also I am a nice person and have inner beauty and all that. BOOBS! hehehehehe….

I got off track here. Anyway, even though those books tried to spin it off as a positive thing, I think the idea that lose weight = instant popularity is very damaging to girls who are already barraged with YOUR BODY IS UNSIGHTLY AND YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF IT media messages. One day, I might have a daughter. And with the genes she’ll get from me and my husband, she will likely struggle with the same weight issues I did growing up. And I am going to do my DAMNEDEST to not do what my parents did, to not give her the same literature to read that I got…

but what SHOULD she read? are there any body-positive books out there for the pre-teen and teen crowd? or is it the same tired message of “fat glenda,” where fat = unhealthy, shameful, boy repellent? I hope not.

Never read Glenda, though I did see enough of the “weight loss solves your problems” stuff, I think.

I do fondly remember Little Lotta from when I was a very young kid. It was one of those cheesy Harvey comics, and Lotta was both unapologetically fat and had superhero-level strength she used to fight the bullies and bad guys.

Though the enormous amounts of food she ate were a running gag, Lotta was portrayed as friendly and popular and sometimes even heroic. She even had a boyfriend, I distantly recall. Being fat was just who Lotta was. Kind of cool :)

I do remember reading “Nothing’s Fair in Fifth Grade” and being horrified by the attitude of the fat girl’s mom and how she favored the fat girl’s skinnier sister so obviously. This really stuck with me because my sister has always been thinner, and I felt for many years that people preferred her because she was thinner and therefore prettier than I was.

The diet the fat girl went on was pretty extreme though. Definitely not a healthy way to lose weight if I’m remembering it correctly.

La Petite Acadienne, I was a huge fan of the Anne books! Still am, actually. I always sort of loved that Anne and Diana were both presented as being pretty though their body types and coloring were very different. As I recall, not only did Anne envy Diana’s dimples and dark curls, but Diana often sighed for Anne’s willowy figure and more exotic red hair.

It was a good early lesson for me in how the grass is only greener if you’re looking from your own pasture and how the things we may be most frustrated with about our own appearance are often the same things that make others stop and look longingly at us.

Sounds like it’s a good thing I missed Fat Glenda, though. If I want a Glenda, I’ll admire Glenda Jackson or howl with laughter at Glen or Glenda…but I’ll continue to give Fat Glenda a miss.

It was a good early lesson for me in how the grass is only greener if you’re looking from your own pasture and how the things we may be most frustrated with about our own appearance are often the same things that make others stop and look longingly at us.

There are two (aside from Blubber) that are coming to mind, but one of them I cannot recall the name of. I should note that I read these books before puberty, and I was a very athletic kid, so I wasn’t looking for take-aways about fat acceptance in them.

One is Maudie and Me and the Dirty Book. My copy had Maudie looking chubby and the protagonist looking slim but not emaciated on it. There’s a lot in it about the protagonist coming to appreciate Maudie as a person.

The one I cannot remember has a chubby protagonist. At one point she worries that a purple pantsuit will make her look like a grape; at another, she worries that a cute boy thinks she looks like a Mack truck. (He doesn’t.) That’s really all I remember.

I remember “Nothing’s Fair in Fifth Grade.” In the end, I think the first and best triumph in the book is that the two girls form a friendship based on trust and respect rather than on weight and beauty.

I remember feeling that the fat girl–Elyse? Elisa?–is in a horrible home and school situation that wouldn’t be solved by merely losing weight. Her mother’s love and her classmate’s respect is fickle and irrational yet she works hard at the weight loss anyway. Her second triumph–losing weight for her own reasons and on her own terms. She knows that being thin won’t gain her anything greater than thinness and health. This makes her a more self-aware and openminded person than her peers and the well-meaning authorities.

Maybe this book had a more sinister side to it that I don’t recall. I was in fifth grade myself when I read it!

I think I remember trying to read a follow-up about Elise after she loses the weight and becomes “hot.” Never finished it. Didn’t like it. Thought it was a sell-out.

Laura V, you are thinking of the book “The Cat Ate My Gymsuit” by Paula Danzinger. It’s told from the POV of Marcy, an overweight kid with family problems. I wasn’t a fat kid, but, being 13, I related to the Marcy’s self loathing quite well. At the same time, the book is quite funny. There’s also a sequel called “There’s a Bat in Bunk Five,” that takes place a a year later. At this point, Marcy has dropped the weight, and has her first boyfriend while being a counselor at a summer camp.

I liked the books because the main character is three dimensional. From what I recall, the narrator is warm, funny, intelligent, and perceptive (for a teenager, anyway). At the same time, her home life is a mess. Her father is a sexist, resentful, hate-filled boor, and her mother is a bit of a mouse. She copes with that as best she can, using humor as a shield. And her self-esteem is abysmal.

One of the thinks I liked about the books was, even though she does slim down, losing weight does not make her any less insecure or solve all her problems. In fact, her relationship with food is a continual struggle for her.

I remember “Blubber” too. I thought it was a pretty accurate picture of how cruel children can be to each other.

It was always like that in LM Montgomery’s books and short stories. She always had at least one plump character and on thinner one who were friends and envious of some feature or other. Come to think of it thats probably why I like them… In The Blue Castle, Valancy is held up to the measure of her cousing Olive who is described as “exceedingly pretty” and then later “heavy” and “plump” but these terms are nearly always equated with health in these books.

Also Louisa May Alcott had a pretty nice view on fat and equated it with health… She might be an advocate of HAES judging on some of the things she has said through characters in Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, Old Fashioned Girl and the Little Women Books. There’s one point in Eight Cousins where Rose is rejoicing over an italian leather belt and how she wore it on the last notch when her Uncle Alec comes in and tells her to give it to him and he will get rid of it because he doesn’t want her to be measuring herself. He then went and got her a bunch of colorful sashes to replace it because they were prettier and wouldn’t tell her if she had gained or lost weight…

Nineteenth Century writers in general seem to equate fat with good health, now that I think about it. In the Secret Garden Mary is described as “sickly and skinny” when she arrived in England and “fat and healthy” a year later. And Dickens illustrated the class divide with size.

As a kid my mother burried me deep in the fairy tales, myths, and the above minus the Dickens, I should thank her for that.

I never read the second Fat Glenda book, but I liked the first. It was a cool story about the narrator becoming friends with someone who was rejected and turning the tables on people who were hassling them both. I even found a copy at a Goodwill.

I’m sorry to hear there was a second one involving weight loss. I liked Fat Fat Glenda.

I never read any of those books (except the ones “pinkleader” read; swords and heroes), and may be why I actually like myself, fat or not. I did read “Thin Arnold” about a very thin rabbit who was always late (one of my other vices) and as a result, always missed dinner. He saves the day by fitting through a tiny hole to save the colony and is rewarded with his fill of food and becomes ‘Fat Arnold’, actually a reverse fat message. Weird.

The worst piece of literature I’ve ever read, ever, was Jemima J by Jane Green. In it, the “fat” protagonist (I want to say she’s a British size 12) can’t find a man and is depressed… because she’s fat. Then she starts losing weight, essentially develops an eating disorder (the author explicitly hints at this, saying things about how everyone told Jemima she looked great and no one told her that maybe she shouldn’t be as obsessed with keeping thin as she is… maybe 3 hours a day in the gym is too much…). In the end, her new, slim self wins over her life-long crush, a guy who never thought of her in that way when she was fat. But don’t worry, she let herself BALLOON out to a comfortable British size 8 at the end — way to let herself go! I’m probably not being as articulate as I’d like about it, but this book made me furious. It’s very typical of the “you can’t be happy unless you’re skinny” and “you’re not worth loving unless you’re pretty and skinny” attitudes, and I don’t know how something so offensive got published.

Nemtynakht, I read the same book, and it is just as disgusting and self-loathing as you say. I was suckered in by the image of shapely legs, thinking that this might be a good story about a fat girl. What a disapointment. I felt really bad about myself for the next three days, and then snapped out of it once I realized both my own fabulousness. And that the writing sounded like something a 12 year old might come up with. Hate books with bad writing are at the bane of my existance.

maatnofret, thanks! As soon as you said the name I was all “yes! That one!”

Pinkleader, it’s not as if reading a whole mess of YA, including some about chubby characters, precludes reading Robin McKinley. I still read McKinley, though I think her recent Sunshine was not her best work.

class-factotum, what kind of dumb teacher would let that happen?
I read that and could not even believe that a teacher would be so oblivious. Even if you were not chubby, a book like that could hurt.

And the only books I have ever read with chubby characters are Jennifer Weiner’s books…And of course those books where the herione think she is fat, but of course is not. Bridget Jones’ Diary, Angus thongs and full frontal snogging, etc.

“Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars” by Daniel M. Pinkwater has a main character who is “portly”. Excellent book. Seriously good stuff about how even when you CAN fit in with the in crowd, you really may not want to. Better to be an ostracized individualist than a welcomed sheep.

Hi all! I just came across this great post and wanted to mention a YA book I wrote called ALL ABOUT VEE that will be out in April. The main character is a plus-size actress who moves to LA to become a movie star and encounters size discrimination but her solution is not to become skinny. She loves herself and refuses to be made to feel ashamed of her body. I hope she, and the book, will soon join the ranks of some of the great books you all have listed above.

I read the “Fat Glenda” books. The thing I remember about the first one was the hippie parents….they made me laugh and I enjoyed the story about the problems the girl had with them. I remember thinking that I did not really understand why the book had Fat Glenda in the title, since it really was not about her at all. And I also remember that in that book Glenda was really obnoxious and I didn’t understand what her being fat had to do with her being so obnoxious, although it was pretty clear that the author tied the two things together.

The second book I remember she had a crush on a teacher, right? And I think the lesson I got out of it was that she lost weight and yet continued to be stepped on by this guy, getting his coffee while he took her for granted. So losing weight is no cure for being treated like dirt, the only thing getting thin got Glenda was the “privilege” of being this teacher’s “Gal Friday”. What a crock! But I also remember thinking it was pretty unrealistic at the end when she stands up to him.

Wow, I remember a lot more about these books than I thought I would. And who knew I would still be so bitter? Heehee!

Ah! Anne Shirley and her longing to be a raven-haired, dimpled, ample beauty. It was pointed out to me last year that authors tend to write one kind of protagonist, and in YA fantasy, that protagonist tends to look either startlingly like the author, or to be blessed with inhuman beauty.

I recommend to you all Ysabeau Wilce’s Flora Segunda , whose titular heroine is short, plump, plain, and absolutely delightful. It’s one of my favorite YA books of the last few years, and it’s fantastic.

I can’t recall the title or author, but I do remember reading some YA book in middle school/early high school about a thin popular pretty girl who made fun of the fat girl in her class and then ended up getting some disease that caused her body to retain everything she ate and she gained 100 pounds. And she ended up losing her boyfriend and friends and wound up at the bottom of the social ladder just because she gained all that weight. And when she tried to make friends with the original fat girl, she blew her off because she’d been such a bitch to her before she got fat. The message seemed to be something along the lines of, “don’t be mean to fat people or God forbid it could be you someday.” Not the greatest moral.

Did anyone else read a book called (I think) Life in the fat Lane? If I remember correctly, it was about a “perfect” cheerleader who contracts a rare disease that makes her fat. She is the same person and nothing else is affected, but I think she becomes almost 100 pounds heavier. Its all about the discrimination faced by fat teens. I remember liking it.

In about the third grade, I read a book called “Fatso Jean, The Ice Cream Queen” by Maryann McDonald which, if I recall correctly, was pretty fat-positive. Or rather, the main character finds confidence and happiness without having to get skinny.

Jean, who is fat, insecure, and tormented by the pretty girls, who call her “Fatso Jean, the Ice Cream Queen.” She then discovers that she’s good at making ice cream, and starts a summer ice cream making business. She is discouraged from this because, of course, fat girls are pigs and she must just be planning to eat it all and it’s unhealthy for her to be around, you know, food that she likes. She rejects this for the hogwash it is and becomes very successful selling her ice cream from a wagon she pulls around the neighborhood, turning “Fatso Jean, the Ice Cream Queen” from a jeer to a slogan. If I recall, she’s trying to earn money to go to Fat Camp (!). She’s really good at making ice cream, and thus sells an enormous amount of it and makes a ton of money. By the end of the summer, she’s happy and confident because of her success. It is also pointed out to her, in the end, that she’s lost some weight because of the exercise she’s been getting walking around the neighborhood, which she hadn’t even noticed. She gives the money to a kid who’s trying to get into the Special Olympics, and everyone’s happy.

Oh, man, this thread takes me back. I used to love books about either fat people or eating disorders. Disturbing, right? The librarians at my school and county libraries must have thought I was awfully studious, but honestly, I was just too embarrassed to check out Cherry Boone O’Neill’s Starving for Attention for the 18th time, so I read it at the library. It’s depressing cause I wasn’t even fat as a kid, just thought I was.

Anyway, this thread is making me realize that most YA fiction handles fat in a strange way; either weight-loss wish fulfillment or dark psychological stuff. Three things I remember reading: One Fat Summer, The Fat Girl (this was a weird book–a popular kid starts dating a fat girl in order to make her over, then starts to hate her as she becomes more confident and independent), and I Was a 15-Year-Old Blimp, which is about bulimia but has a reasonably positive message at the end if I recall.

Oh, god, i remember all these books! I think it was one of those Glenda books that had a saleswoman muttering that Glenda was shaped like a goblin, which has been forever burned in my brain when trying on clothes in department stores. I loved the Paula Danziger books, even when the fat girl got thin — but boots, I totally forgot about the terror freakshow that was the Fat Girl. I was convinced for years that every boy who liked me was going to try the same thing.

Ooh, okay, I have one. Maybe you can help me figure out the title. I read it in 7th grade so that would be 1997 or there abouts and I think it was a few years old at that point — or, at least, the paperback I borrowed from the library was well-read. A girl, who was self-described as fat (don’t remember if she was for-real fat or size 6 fat), was BFF with a geeky boy, who secretly had a major crush on her. She wanted to lose weight so she could date this super popular boy. Over the summer, she went to the beach or something and got food poisoning and lost all her weight (of course). Then she came back in the fall for school and got to date the popular boy! Yay! Who, as it turned out, was a jerk! Boo. Then she finds out that geeky BFF is tots in love with her. And I don’t remember if she started dating him or not. I just remember learning that food poisoning and other ills make you thin so from that point on, I always hoped to catch one — just for a week or two, you know, nothing deadly.

I was teased a lot in school and my teacher let me borrow a book called “Don’t Call Me Fatso.” I fell in love with it at that time. But, now that I look back on it- not so much. It supported the idea that the girl was fat because she ate too much and because she was lazy. Hey… some people are… But not all. In the end the girl lost weight and had friends and was happy… but why couldn’t she be that way when she was heavy? She deserved it. She was smart and pretty… and the kids were the ones with problems. I still look for the book because of the childhood memory…

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